Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Locally, there isn’t much optimism that a new bottle or two will be added to the shelf in 2014 and Amaro, the general manager during the team’s recent struggles, gets the brunt of the blame.

“I’m a human being and, yes, it [ticks] me off because I know our players are better than the perception,” Amaro said Tuesday as a misty rain fell on Pattison Avenue outside his office window. “The team we fielded the last third of the season was not our club. That wasn’t the expectation when we started the season last year.”

“For better or worse, we invested in these guys because they were some of the best players in the game. And we felt that if they stayed healthy, that core of players could sustain our ability to contend,” Amaro said. “If they weren’t going to be healthy, that’s what would cause problems.”

...“If the club we believe is going to break camp is able to stay on the field, we’re a contending team,” Amaro said. “My job is for us to try to be a contending team every year. Our payroll should allow us to do that. We had a couple of crappy years because we couldn’t get guys on the field and couldn’t get the performances we’re accustomed to. Doc Halladay not being healthy crushed us. It’s not his fault. It’s just part of the game. When it happens to guys you are counting on with huge contracts, you can’t just buy your way out with mediocre players.”

...“Ultimately, there’s such a lack of real impact players, you have to try to hold on to them as long as you can. You lock ‘em up so they don’t get on the market, and you overpay them, and the market goes nuts,” Amaro said. “Is [new rightfielder] Marlon Byrd a superstar? Absolutely not. Is he a decent role player for us? Yeah. I have to take a chance on Marlon Byrd because there’s so many other things I’ve got to do. If I go get [premier free-agent outfielder] Carlos Beltran, then I can’t take a chance on [pitcher] Roberto Hernandez. We’ve got a lot of holes to fill, and our job is to try to make the right decision 70 percent of the time, not the wrong decision 70 percent of the time.”

“There are only so many chances to be a champion, and I will never stop believing that if you have a chance, you take the opportunity,” Amaro said. “If you don’t take a chance on Adam Eaton, then maybe you don’t take a chance on Jayson Werth. You have to take your swings.”

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This article is impressive. It is clearly a soft piece giving Amaro a chance to defend himself and get his point of view out there without being questioned yet he still manages to come off as clueless and incompetent in it.

Something Amaro hasn't done in the last two off-seasons is lose draft picks due to FA signings (even though the Phillies have a protected 1st rounder this year). I don't know how many drafts a team needs to rebuild their farm system, but this is a promising sign.

Everybody is slamming Amaro but nobody is giving him credit for actually getting the still-active Roberto Hernandez who used to be Fausto Carmona and not the 49 yo former closer... I mean, the guy is saddled with working off of 10 year old scouting reports and you people can't even recognize the difficulty of that task?